Jay Feldman 0:00
Jay Feldman, welcome to episode 19 of the energy balance Podcast. I'm Jay Feldman, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave In today's episode, we are going to be talking about how you can transition from a carnivore or primal type diet to a more bioenergetic approach. For those of you who are not aware, the carnivore and primal diets fall within the low carb umbrella of diets, which also includes keto and they've been gaining a lot of popularity lately, and with that, some of the more prominent people within these communities have actually started to transition away from them and towards a more bioenergetic approach. So we'll be talking about that, why that's happening, and we'll also be talking about how you can make that transition seamlessly, if you are coming from any sort of low carb diet to this more bioenergetic approach, and we'll talk through some of the common issues that people have when doing that, and how to avoid those issues. And we'll also be talking about why people feel benefits on these diets, why they typically feel pretty good on these different low carb diets, and specifically the carnivore and primal diets, at least in the short term, but also why in the long term, these diets come at a pretty major cost and end up leading to a lot of the symptoms that had brought people there in the first place, including a lack of energy, tiredness, a lot of cravings and hunger and brain fog, a lack of libido and other hormonal symptoms and issues, as well as poor sleep and deterioration of hair, skin and nails and all sorts of other inflammation type symptoms or conditions. So we'll be talking about how you can resolve all of these different symptoms and conditions through this bioenergetic approach, and why it actually is an effective long term solution and doesn't have the same long term cost that comes with these carnivore and primal diets. And as we'll talk about throughout the episode, that cost really comes down to a lack of carbohydrates, which, of course, have become the scapegoat throughout a lot of the alternative health communities, and of course, especially in the low carb communities. So we'll be talking about that and why carbs and sugars are not the devils that they're made out to be, and why they are not the cause for all of these different symptoms and conditions, and how we can actually have a diet that incorporates the right types of carbohydrates and sugars in the right context, so we can actually thrive without needing these sorts of low carb diets. So to check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where I'll be linking to any of the articles or studies or anything else that we referenced throughout today's episode. And if you are dealing with any of those symptoms that I'd mentioned earlier, whether that's hormonal issues, low libido, a lack of energy and fatigue, if you're having trouble sleeping, if you have gut symptoms, whether that's bloating or constipation or gut inflammation, or if you're dealing with constant hunger and cravings, then I would highly encourage you to head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and sign up for a free energy balance mini course where I'll walk you through the main things that you'll want to do, as far as diet and exercise and stress are concerned, in order to maximize your cellular energy, which, as we'll be talking about within this bioenergetic approach is really the key to improving our health. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy. Again, I would highly recommend that if you are transitioning from any sort of low carb type diet. And with that, let's get started. So we'll start by talking about what the carnivore diet is, primal diet, and we'll go from there. So basically, the carnivore diet, the primal diet, or the raw primal diet, are more or less offshoots of the low carb movement. So for a while, low carb and paleo were really popular, and they still are. And then keto was the next very popular offshoot, which is basically an extremely low carb diet and pretty high fat and moderate protein. And then another kind of offshoot there has been this carnivore diet and raw carnivore raw primal diets, where basically the idea within carnivores that you're only eating animal products. Sometimes this is only meats and doesn't include dairy. Sometimes it does include dairy, but that's the basis for it. And then there's the raw primal diet, which is essentially the same thing, but just everything being raw, as far as eating raw meat, which is some of this might be kind of some of a surprise to people who aren't familiar with this, but it is definitely something that's gained a lot of pop. Larity More recently, and is something that a lot of people who have noticed benefits in the low carb or keto community have have also found benefits within this carnivore and raw, primal type way of eating. And so the yeah, there's been several people who have kind of made these diets popular. You have Sean Baker, who is one of the main people who had made the carnivore diet popular.

Mike 5:30
And then primal diet is that's like Mark Sisson.

Jay Feldman 5:34
So, so when I'm talking, yeah, so mark Sisson did talk about his as the primal diet, but a lot of times when people are talking about the primal diet, they're talking about vonder planets primal diet, which is more of like a raw diet, whereas Marxists was kind of just another it was just paleo, yeah, yeah, it was just paleo. And so yeah, there's a little bit of conflicting nomenclature there. But so when I'm talking about raw or the primal diet, I'm talking about that raw primal diet. And yeah, so Sean Baker and the carnivore MD, Paul Saladino have made the carnivore diets really popular. And then Joe Rogan has talked about the carnivore diet on his podcast, and he had tried it for a little while, and was noticing some supposed benefits with energy and things like that. And then I know the Peterson So Jordan Peterson and Michaela Peterson have talked about various types of low carb including car carnivore diets, and have really made it pretty popular.

Mike 6:30
And I think Michaela Peterson's is called the lion diet, or something like that.

Jay Feldman 6:34
Okay

Mike 6:35
Is it much different from just regular, it's literally, it's literally just meat and water. It's the same thing. Everybody has their own sort of I mean, I'm sure there's nuances to her diet compared to Saladino diet, compared to Sean Baker's diet, they all I mean, everybody has their own angle to spin on the diet, but the general gist, I think, is relatively similar.

Jay Feldman 6:57
And both of us have a lot of experience with low carb diets our cells and ketogenic diets and intermittent fasting, which are all kind of interrelated within this space, but neither of us have done the primal or carnivore specifically.

Mike 7:10
Yeah, never full carnivore or anything like that, right?

Jay Feldman 7:13
But we there are. There are a lot of reasons why people do feel benefits on these diets, and feel better in some ways, but there are also a lot of drawbacks, especially in the long term. So let's talk about some of those differences and why some people might feel better when they transition towards this type of diet, and then the cost of of being on a diet like this. Yeah.

Mike 7:33
I mean, I guess a good example to use the star is the Petersons, and specifically Michaela Peterson to talk about one of the main benefits of the diet. And if anyone's not aware her situation, I'm pretty sure she had an autoimmune arthritis disease that led to the replacement of multiple joints. I think it was ankle and hip, and I'm not sure of her specifics, but in talking about that, one of the primary benefits of carnivore or low carb or keto or anything like that. Starting out is that it has a it changes gut health or gut function and things along those lines. And just by getting rid of grains and getting rid of fermentable carbohydrates and different things like that, in the presence of a colonic dysbiosis or small bowel overgrowth of microorganisms can cause huge benefits for people who are suffering from those and I think that a lot of people are finding that they have issues with their microbiome, things like that, and that that actually is a talking point in Paleo. One of the main talking points of paleo for a while was gut health, with a focus on fixing gut health and bone broth and all these different things to sort of move gut health in the right way. So with carnivore, the this first primary benefit is that when you just go to only eat meat, meat is fully digested, mainly in the small intestine. It's not really fermentable unless you have a lot of, I would say like connective tissue, cartilaginous tissue from the meat. So if you're eating like different joints, but just eating steaks or rib eyes, it's mostly, uh, protein that's easily digested and absorbed in the small intestine, and it doesn't leave a lot of residue to go be fermented in the colon. So if you do have a dysbiosis present in the colon, you do have some pathogenic bacterial strains. For example, Klebsiella pneumonia is associated with Crohn's disease and ankylosing spondylitis. And then different types of bacteria and different Morgan or microorganisms are associated also with different types of autoimmune diseases like Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis and things like that. So if you're not feeding those bacteria in the gut with a lot of fermentable carbohydrates, which is the main substrate that they're going to feed off of, then you can effectively get rid of symptoms. And a lot of people notice that they get rid of a lot of symptoms, or they reverse autoimmune diseases when they go on these diets. And I think it's because of the lack of feeding a dysbiotic bowel. So the question is, is, in this scenario, is it really healing the person, when they go on on these diets, are they just getting rid of and if, and say they are getting rid of symptoms, they don't have all these bacterial products being formed from the fermentation of these carbs in their colon, or if they have a small bowel overgrowth in their small intestine, they may have some healing. But does it solve the underlying issue of the dysbiosis? Um, so we have So besides the besides not feeding a dysbiotic bowel and having improvements in gut health in that aspect, and that's next aspect where we find benefit for the gut is that it removes a lot of irritating foods.

Jay Feldman 10:43
So before before we touch on that, real quick, I just want to summarize what you were saying for gut health, which is basically that if your gut health is if you don't have good gut health, if you're the bacteria and other microbes like fungi in your intestine, you have different overgrowths. Or if the quote, unquote bad bacteria are, you have excessive amounts of them, if, basically, if your gut health is not good, then it can be pretty difficult to eat carbohydrates, because a lot of them will feed whatever bad microbes are in there, which produce a lot of gut toxins, which are disastrous for our health. They're in every way. And so you were saying that this that this, that a lot of people's symptoms, whether it's autoimmune conditions or joint pain or weight gain or insulin resistance, can come back to this sort of gut health. And when we go to a low carb diet, whether it's carnivore or primal or some other offshoot, it can lead to relief from from those symptoms, because you're not feeding these, this dysbiosis in your Yeah.

Mike 11:44
I think it's important to point out too, it's a lot of the studies look at specific strains of bacteria or fungi or parasites and whatnot in the in the GI tract, and they can have a lot of issues. They can cause a lot of issues individually. But a lot of times it's a it's like it's an ecological thing. So it's a lot of different species of bacteria and fungi and parasites together in sort of and that's why they call it a dysbiosis, rather than just purely an infection. And that's because it's multiple different things going wrong simultaneously. And it generally, it is caused by diet. It is caused by diet. And then the other thing that isn't a main cause of this, and that's at least as theorized in the literature, is lack of breastfeeding and being formula fed and things like that, setting you up for a ton of issues going forward. So considering the state of most modern people being formula fed, not being breastfed, and then growing up on, on diets that can, that are have a lot of potential to cause dysbiosis is in the bowel. It's not surprising that these diets are these carnivore diets with lack of fermentable carbs, are actually helping people. I mean, neither of us is really arguing that getting rid of some of these things isn't helpful. I mean, I think it is helpful. I think that maybe going down to the diet that's extremely or less irritating overall, is really helpful for a period of time for people. So it's not that we're saying it's terrible there. These are these benefits are legit. It's just it just that it may not be the best long term option. So that comes at a cost. Yeah, it comes at a cost. And as I was saying before, there's some other irritating compounds. And they talk this is one of the other things they talk about. And this goes hand in hand with the dysbiosis as well, because a lot of the irritating compounds, like the one of the ones they talk about in the gut is oxalates, which can be found in in sweet potatoes. It can be found in, specifically in spinach and chard. A lot of those plant foods can actually cause irritation in the gut if you don't have certain species present to break down the oxalates, and if your gut barrier, or your gut integrity isn't doing so hot. So there's there's a tons of different there's tons of different compounds in plants. You have oxalates, you have lectins, which are like protein carbohydrate combinations that bind to the the intestinal wall and the intestinal lining and can strip it and then they can interact with the immune system. And tons and tons of different plants have left. I think almost every single plant has lectins. Animal, animal, animal foods also are loaded with lectins as well, and they they have all different effects. It's not that lectins as a whole are terrible. It's just that different ones have different effects and meant for a particular reason. And so these different foods can cause a lot of irritation, especially if you have a dysbiosis, and then especially if your gut integrity is is poor. And so the getting rid of these foods for a period of time can essentially allow the gut to rest of sorts um, and allow it to not be under a constant assault, especially because some foods that are considered health foods currently are some of the biggest contributors to causing gut issues, including whole grains and including um. Uh, legumes, for certain people, and then some of the vegetables and things like that are actually very irritating for people. And then the last part that goes with this is there's a strong focus in the carnivore diet on having easily absorbable and highly nutritious foods. And that is definitely a benefit, especially if you're including dairy in the diet and you're tolerating dairy, then the combination of just milk and milk and meat and an organ meats and and fats from from these animals, or if you're eating eggs in the diet, that's a very nutritious diet in and of itself, and covers a lot of bases that aren't met when you're coming from us, if you're coming from a standard American diet, especially and even when people go on keto diets, I mean the keto diet, it does include plant foods. But often the plant foods are like green vegetables and things like that, which are very nutrient dense, and then they also have the high amount of animal foods that are nutrient dense. So you get a complete diet coming. And this is especially when you're coming from something where you have a heavy wheat based diet. It's processed. As from genetically modified monoculture crops with poor soil nutrients and things like that, and then you're eating just factory farm chicken breast. Because, I mean, the main diet, there's a, there's an article that looked at this over the 100 years, looking at the American diet, there's a decrease in consumption of beef and pork and things like that, with a or, I think it was mainly beef. And then there's a decrease in dairy, and then there's an increase in consumption of chicken and vegetable oil. And then grains even dropped a little bit as well. So the diet and but refined sugar increased to some extent as well. So the diet really shifted to be less nutrient dense. And so just going from standard American to going to keto is beneficial, even if you don't have the carbs, or if you're going to paleo, and you do, but you're low carb and you have carbs, or even if you're going carnivore, if you have a serious issue, because you increase nutrients, you get rid of things that are irritating. And then one of the biggest ones is not feeding the dysbiosis. And I just want to one thing I really want to point out about the dysbiosis, just so that we can solidify what it actually is is when you have certain carbohydrate foods. So certain carbohydrate foods are almost entirely absorbed in the small intestine, and these would be things like white rice if, especially if it's not cooled, where it can produce resistant starch. And then juices with that have a specific ratio of glucose to fructose, but a lot of other fruits or vegetables or even grains and things like that have carbohydrates that make it to the colon. And these can these can feed these different populations of bacteria. And so when they feed these populations of bacteria, if they are pathogenic bacteria, or there's a dysbiosis, then essentially what you'll see is you have a dissolving of the mucus layer in the colon, and then a breakdown of gut integrity, and then you'll have a release of toxic compounds from these bacteria. And the main one that they talk about in the research is endotoxin, which comes from gram negative bacteria. But there's a whole host of compounds that can be released by these bacteria, and it causes immune activation. And a lot of autoimmune disease are postulated to be related to a chronic infection in the gut from some of these bacteria with consistent immune activation. So it's really important that we keep the gut sealed and that we we don't have a dysbiotic bowel or a chronic infection in the colon or anything like that. And I think that is one of the primary benefits that a lot of people are seeing, specifically the autoimmune component, especially in somebody like Michaela Peterson's case for carnivore diets.

Jay Feldman 18:38
Yeah, and it goes beyond just immune activity. The reason for that is because these toxins produced from the gut directly interfere with our ability to produce energy on the mitochondrial level, and that directly causes inflammation, which leads to these sorts of autoimmune states, this stress state. And so removing those things leads to a lot of relief there. Yeah, and I would say that this is one of the main things that that inhibits our ability to produce energy, which is really the foundational component to our health, which we'll we'll briefly touch on. But yeah, that was a good summary. We have had a few episodes talking specifically about gut health in more detail, how different foods interact with our gut, which ones are ideal, and so I'll link to those. But yeah, so the point being there that there are several important, significant benefits from removing carbs from the diet, whether it's a low carb or keto or carnivore, and sometimes, especially with something like carnivore, because even if you have some of those leafy greens in your diet and you're just doing low carb or you're doing keto and you have some other vegetation in your diet, for people who are even more sensitive, those things can still be irritating. So the point being that the main benefits from the carnivore, raw primal diets are nutrient density and a relief from from inflammation and gutter and health disrupting factors from our gut. So those. Are kind of the most important things, and they are benefits, but they come at it at a pretty big cost. And again, this is in many ways much better than the conventional diets, because the types of carbohydrates that most people are eating are grains, or typically improperly prepared grains, unripe fruit, a lot of...

Mike 20:21
Processed foods, a lot of processed foods. That's a huge one, right?

Jay Feldman 20:25
And so these come with a lot of problems that are separate from the carbohydrates themselves. And when you're in this, in the low carb community, there is this grouping of all carbohydrates as being the same. And because of that, All carbohydrates are not only not ideal, they're like the worst thing as far as health is concerned, but in reality, in the same we talked about, you know, these diets being pretty nutrient dense. There's a huge nutrient that they're missing out on, and that is carbohydrates. And we've talked about, we've talked about this in detail in several episodes, so I'm not going to dig into it too much, but I'll at least give a brief overview.

Mike 21:03
before you continue, I do want to say that a lot of people find this stuff to also be self evident for themselves and form a confirmation bias, because when they do eat after they go on these diets and they eat carbohydrates, they tend to get symptoms. But it really depends on what carbohydrates you're eating and how much when you start, so if you have a dysbiosis, and then you go, and you start eating potatoes again, or pasta again, or you start eating certain fruits again that can irritate your gut, or that have fibers that reach the colon that can cause issues, and then you start getting symptoms. The question is, really, what carb sources are you eating? And when I talk to people, and they talk, they're telling me they're telling me they're having issues with carbs and things like that. The first thing I always ask is, what carb source are you eating? Because people say, Oh, I'm only eating pasta, and then they start to get issues with it, and then it's like, okay, and then, oh, I'm eating whole grain bread, or I'm eating this, or mean that, and they start to get symptoms, or they start to get weight gain, and then they start to wonder, Oh, so maybe it is just the carbs. But there's other things in the food besides carbs, there's different types of carbs. There's fermentable carbohydrates that we can't digest. So really is important to ask, what carbs are you using? And when we talked about later, when you're starting to transition off a carnivore diet, using the right carbs to start, especially if you went into the diet with some sort of autoimmune disease or gut dysbiosis, it's important to use ones that aren't reaching the colon to start while you're trying to build things and get things going in the right direction.

Jay Feldman 22:27
Yeah, yeah. And, yeah. We'll touch on that as we get those. It's a nice sneak preview. So yeah, and so, so let's first before we talk about that. Now that we've kind of tried to at least shed some of the the assumptions around carbs, I would say that carbs are, I don't want to say more necessary or more. They're one of the main determinants of the quality of our environment. And as such, when we don't have very many carbs, it signals that our environment is not ideal, and it mimics a, essentially a starvation or fat famine type state. And this is shown throughout the research. This is Part of the reason why intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets and all sorts of low carb diets are encouraged is because they mimic this fasting type state, but you can actually eat at least some food, which is nice, but, but we the the short of it is that we don't actually want to be mimicking that state, because what happens in a stress state, as a famine state, a starvation state is that all of the processes inside our bodies that require energy are essentially down regulated, where, when our bodies don't have enough energy available in something like starvation or a famine, they need to make sure they can conserve as much energy as possible and hold on to as much fuel or store as much fuel as possible so that they can survive in the long term. So what this So in the short term, we might have some benefits for moving carbs because of all these things we talked about, but in the long term, what typically ends up doing is down regulating our metabolism, meaning that we eat a lot less and and maintain our weight, which means that we have less energy for all of our higher level functions. We have less energy for our brain to function properly, for our digestive function system to function properly, for our immune system to function properly, and again, all these things require energy and so on. We're putting our when we're basically tricking our bodies into thinking that there isn't a lot of energy available. It comes at this major cost, and that's, I would say, the the like kind of largest 30,000 foot view of of the importance of carbohydrates, but in a slightly more specific sense, when our blood sugar drops because we're not eating carbs, it causes the release of stress hormones to maintain that sugar, because that sugar is needed for our brains to function. And when you're on a ketogenic diet, our brains will use some amount of ketones, but in order to get to the point where they're producing ketones, it requires first this drop in blood sugar, an increase in the stress hormones that raise blood sugar, which at first is glucagon and then adrenaline and cortisol, those are the things that drive ketogenesis, and they all. To drive gluconeogenesis, which is the production of glucose from protein in order to supply some amount of glucose. And these stress hormones, especially in the long term, come at a cost they begin to they basically are the mediators between our environment and our adaptation that allows us to down regulate our metabolism. So these are the things that decrease thyroid hormone production and conversion. They decrease the production of reproductive hormones. They and they also directly inhibit our energy production in the short term, again, they can stimulate it, but in the long term, they've been shown to reduce it.

Mike 25:36
And you see this with prominent carnivore, keto, low carb people posting some of their lab results online, you see sort of crappy thyroid panels and androgen levels that are at the bottom of the range. Even prominent doctors in the sphere have posted results like this. So it's not and this is like documented in research as well, especially for even in things for like intermittent fasting, they see decreases in androgens and thyroid hormone and things like that. So, I mean, it's this isn't speculation. This isn't like just theory. This has actually been shown, yep.

Jay Feldman 26:11
And I'll link to previous article or previous previous podcasts, and also a bunch of articles that I've written, doing with this with with all those references, so people can't take a look. So that's that's kind of the general process of what happens when we aren't eating carbohydrates, is that it ends up down, regulating all of these systems that we want to be functioning optimally. And in the long term, it deteriorates our health. And people notice it when they're on these diets for a long period of time. A lot of times, they feel really good in the beginning, and then over time, they notice that their hormonal health deteriorates. Their libido is gone. They can't sleep well. They may have more inflammation coming back. A lot of the things that may have improved initially then start to come back. Whether it's joint inflammation or maybe some of those autoimmune symptoms, fatigue starts to set in where just you don't have the same energy for workouts or just for getting through the day, brain fog can happen as well. So, and there are a lot of people who are essentially starting to recognize these things, and especially within the carnivore and primal communities, and are actually starting to transition because of this. They're starting to transition away from the kind of strict low carb or no carb, strict carnivore, strict raw primal, towards what we would call a more bioenergetic approach, which is what we what we talk about, the lens through which we see health, which is basically that when we're looking at our health in terms of energy, I guess I should say, when we look at our health in terms of energy, that is the best way to dictate what we should be doing for our health, which, again, when we're looking at the and I'll reference these articles and podcasts, but when we use fats instead of carbohydrates, just in short, We end up with less energy on that cellular level, and we drive all these adaptations that drive stress. And this has to do with differences in the FADH two and NADH ratio, which changes, causes changes in ratios between the NAD and between NAD and NADH it leads to lower CO two production, all of these things on that mitochondrial level, on the cellular level, that when we're using fats instead of carbohydrates, it basically results in less energy, and then leads to the production of stress hormones, which, in the long term, also results in less energy. And yeah. So because of this, a lot of people are start or some prominent people are starting to recognize this and are starting to transition away from carnivore, at least strict carnivore or primal, and towards this more bioenergetic approach. And so this bioenergetic approach some of the more important features, or I guess, differences between this and looking at things in the carnivore primal community, is seeing the importance of carbs, especially the well digested carbs. And we'll talk about what those are seeing the dangers of the polyunsaturated fats, which are the fats found in vegetable oils, and then also in nuts and seeds and grains and legumes, and in fatty fish and and fatty pork and fatty chicken. And again, we've done episodes, and I have articles talking about PUFA, so I'll, I'll link to those, but yeah, some of the the more prominent people in the carnivore community are starting to transition this way, and so one of them that has been more open about it is the strong sisters. And this is a couple of sisters who are who have basically documented their journey throughout primal and raw primal, and we're noticing a lot of their it seemed like their biggest thing they were noticing was hormonal deterioration, and they lost their their amenorrheic meaning that they didn't have their menstrual cycle, or they they didn't have their periods, and that was one of the main things that led to them trying to introduce more carbs. And they've been talking about how since finding this approach, they've. Also noticed that a lot of other things have been changing as well. So I do know that they've, they've at least one of the sisters I'm not sure about both, has talked about how she actually did get her period after about four months, which is pretty, pretty great, and definitely not something that's uncommon. I've seen a lot of clients who are in a very similar place and have have had a lot of menstrual symptoms, and sometimes are amenorrheic, and then are able to restore that cycle. So so she's definitely not an anomaly there, but she but it is. It is an important thing to consider. And then they've also talked about how not only are they noticing improvements in their hormones, they're also noticing that they have a lot more energy, that their cravings and hunger have improved dramatically, and that their relationship with food has changed dramatically, which both Mike and I experienced as well when we transitioned away from low carb and for us, when we were on the low carb keto approaches, we had really intense cravings for carbohydrates every time we ate. We always wanted to eat more. We were we're always looking forward to the next meal. We were basically always, we always had our eyes on the clocks or on our phones as far as when we were able to eat next. And we're never, you know, you're never fully satisfied. Those cravings for more food and specifically for carbohydrates, are just there always. And it's such a night and day difference when you actually start to give your body the nutrients that it needs to actually produce the energy that it needs. Because our hunger signals are dictated by energy availability, both in our liver and in our brain, and when we're eating enough carbs that we digest well and that we have the nutrients to properly process and produce energy from our hunger signals actually turn off, and it's it's different from feeling full. So a lot of times, when we think, you know, when you aren't in this place, and you think of being satisfied, you just think of being physically full. But for a lot of people, when they're physically full, they can still eat, or still want to eat a lot more, but they kind of stop themselves, or it's uncomfortable, as opposed to actually being in a place where you can be not even full and be satisfied and not want to eat whatever it is that's in front of you, or have cravings for donuts or candy or cookies or ice cream, even when you haven't eaten those things. And so it's, it's a really incredible difference. But that was Anyways, that was something that they had said that they had noticed you were talking earlier about labs, as far as thyroid and reproductive hormones go. And they were also one of the sisters had was talking about her labs. And when she was on, like, in the midst of carnivore and raw primal, her cholesterol is in the five hundreds. It was like upper five hundreds, close to 600 and dropped about 300 I think, over 300 points in four months. And so I had talked about how my cholesterol dropped by about 100 points when I switched from low carb to this kind of more bioenergetic approach. But obviously 300 points is pretty major, so..

Mike 32:57
You guys must use statins

Jay Feldman 32:59
Well and and we've talked about the relationship between cholesterol and metabolism, and why statins are not necessarily the best idea, and how having a high cholesterol level can be a really good indicator that your metabolism is low. It basically is a signal that more or less, our bodies are not converting cholesterol into the protective steroid hormones, pregnenolone, progesterone, all the androgens, DHEA, testosterone. And because of that, essentially the cholesterol levels are increased to try to force that that conversion, which, which? That conversion requires thyroid hormone, meaning that it requires an active metabolism. Because our thyroid, our thyroid and thyroid hormones are the main regulators of our metabolism. So, so this is just again, another indicator of that both of us have also talked about, and also again going over the labs from from one of the sisters, she was saying that her markers of inflammation were all about the same, no signs of insulin resistance. Her fasting blood sugar had actually dropped several you know, maybe from around 90 to around 80. And you would talk specifically about the labs that you had gotten when you were when you were on the very high when you did very high carbon, very low fat, which we are not a fan of either. We think that having at least a moderate amount of fat and carbs is actually a good idea, which, again, is also counterintuitive, and we'll talk about it. But you had mentioned that, or talked about your labs when you were on very high carb and very low fat, and you were extremely insulin sensitive, very low inflammatory markers, and you weren't feeling great, and we attribute that at all. Yeah, right, because you do well with high carbs, it was just a low fat that was the issue. But regardless, it's important to consider that, that not only were they, are they? Are they feeling better subjectively? And have we felt better subjectively? But on paper, is showing the same thing, yep. And so Paul Saladino, the carnivore MD, has also recently talked about how he's been increasing carbohydrates, and how carbohydrates don't cause insulin resistance and diabetes, and they aren't the devil that they're made out to be, which is causing kind of. Ripples and waves throughout the the carnivore sphere, and he's also been talking a lot about the dangers of polyunsaturated fats and how the polyunsaturated fats are such a major contributor to metabolic disease, and all of these issues that we've talked about. And he hasn't, he hasn't made it clear that he is following any sort of bioenergetic approach, but he's at least experimenting with these principles, and seems to be in favor of these ideas. And so he's been talking about how he's been eating more honey, and he's experimented with some other carbohydrates as well, but he has been talking about how he feels a lot more energy. He potentially has more more energy at the gym, and is potentially noticing some improvements in strength. He had also mentioned cramps were really big issue for him. And those weren't going away, despite getting enough potassium, magnesium and maybe calcium as well, I think he was experimenting with but having the carbohydrates made a big difference there. And he had also said that he he has not noticed any changes in body composition, which, of course, everybody is afraid of when they bring in carbs. And he was using, he's been using a continuous glucose monitor, and seeing that he does have a blood sugar spike when he eats the carbs, which is expected and is normal, yep. But it comes down. It's not too high, and it comes down pretty soon after, meaning that he's using those carbohydrates, well, meaning that the carbohydrates are going into the blood and then getting distributed throughout, into the muscles and to our brain and wherever else that's using them and using them efficiently so that they keep taking them out of out of the bloodstream. And the main issue with and I'll kind of circle back, because we didn't mention this earlier, but some of the concerns as far as bringing in carbs, specifically sugars, is fructose. And so there are a lot of people who since Paul Saladino has said, that he is eating honey. A lot of his his fans or followers are very upset about the fact that that honey is, of course, sugar, and sugar has fructose, and fructose is, of course, the main factor of causing all disease, and is all you know, really terrible for us and or proposed main factor, right? So that's, yeah, exactly. And so we've dug specifically into why fructose is not such, is not the bad guy at all, and it's actually kind of in combination with glucose, right, right? Exactly, so. And that's kind of what So, what you're alluding to is that a lot of the research is on fructose alone, and when we eat fructose alone, it isn't digested and absorbed very well, which causes increases in gut toxin production and all sorts of inflammatory markers, and that's a major thing responsible for all this research that's supposedly anti fructose. There's several other factors as well, which has to do with the difference between rats and humans and how rat livers have a very low capacity for handling fructose compared to ours. So there's several arguments there that really don't hold true. I've written several articles talking specifically about this, and we've talked about this another in other podcasts as well. So I'll link to all those. But the point being that fructose is actually a good guy rather than a bad guy, and helps to support us metabolically, helps to increase the energy production, specifically in our liver, which, as I talked about, is a main factor in relation to hunger, and is also the main source of carbohydrate for our brain, because our brains can't source, can't store carbohydrates. So a lot of that carbohydrate is stored on our liver, which then gets released as needed to our brain. It also helps to convert the thyroid hormones into the active, the the inactive to active thyroid hormones, and helps to detoxify so many, so many of the problematic compounds that we're exposed to, including toxins from our gut, which is all dependent on liver function. And fructose is really good at improving that, because it's such a good energy source for the liver. So that was just kind of an important side note, but, but I don't remember where I left off earlier in talking about Paul Saladino experiences, oh, he was saying that he was having as much as 70 grams of honey in a meal, which for us is not 70

Mike 38:48
grams of sugar. Yeah, right, right. But

Jay Feldman 38:50
for Yeah, if we were low carbon, hearing that, we would definitely be feeling like that was blasphemous. And yeah, a lot of the comments on his videos have been suggesting that they've been basically saying that sugar in the sugar in that honey, is the equivalent of sugar, and sugar is the equivalent of heroin because of how addicting it is, and this is the main cause of metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. And there's a few other ideas that are being thrown around about sugar addiction, where maybe this is fine for him because he doesn't have sugar addiction, but other people do, and so for them, it's not okay. And we've talked about this idea before, and so I'll link to that. But the idea of sugar addiction, we would both kind of argue, is, is really not sound. It's, it's more or less nonsense. And when we we've talked a little bit about hunger and the relationship with energy, and I'll just leave it at if we are doing the things that help to support us on that energetic level and lead to high levels of energy. And again, when we're talking about energy, we're talking about physiological energy on that cellular level. A lot of times that means ATP. And when we have enough ATP in the in the liver and brain, our hunger signals turn off. So if you are noticing that. You have sugar cravings or sugar addiction, what that really is, is just a signal that your body is in need of energy, and sugar is our ideal source for that, in many ways, and you're essentially sugar deficient. So we've talked about that in more detail in previous podcasts.

Mike 40:15
And I think it is important to point out, though, that when people, a lot of people, talk about sugar addiction, and we've talked about this previously. They're talking about an addiction to refined processed foods, and not necessarily an addiction, but cravings for those foods are all like can be understood because they are manipulated to be what to be extremely palatable and to and to create cravings and things like that, because they're combinations of sugar, fat, salt, everything that your body basically wants. Um, so there is something to be said about that. But as far as sugar addiction goes from eating fruit or drinking juice or eating some honey or having some some sweet potatoes or rice or whatever it is, or any type of carbohydrate craving in general, I wouldn't call that an addiction. I would call that a physiologic need. It's like, you know, it's like the in terms of calling a carbohydrate as an addiction. It's like the, somewhat akin, it's not a perfect analogy to calling oxygen and addiction, you know. So when you're craving oxygen, we got to stay away from that. It's that's not necessarily how it works. I mean, carbohydrates are a necessity for functioning optimally. And I know a lot of carnivore and keto people can say, well, they're well, they're not that. They're not essential, because our body can make it. But it's when you look at the processes of how the carbohydrate is created by our body, when we don't have enough carbohydrate coming in, and it's at the expense of our own tissues. And so the argument makes more sense, and we've talked about this before, so we're essentially beating a dead horse at this point. But if sugar is so non essential, your body is essentially breaking itself down to produce it and releasing toxic compounds, including ammonia, when they when it undergoes gluconeogenesis, just to produce sugar. So it is extremely important, and having cravings for it is normal. Having cravings for hyper palatable food from an from the industrial industry, or the industrial processing and things like that, is a different story. That's that's a completely different story. And I think it's important that we point that out, because when you say, Oh, I'm craving Oreos, I'm so addicted to Oreos, it's like there may be a reason why you're craving Oreos. Specifically that is meant to be that way?

Jay Feldman 42:22
And the palatability isn't, isn't an issue. It's something to consider. But if, like, we're not saying that we should be avoiding hyper palatable foods, we do think you should be more or less avoiding Oreos because of, not because of the palatability issues, but because there are a lot of things in there that are not ideal for our health, but having carbs and fats together, we actually think is, it is a good idea, and even you can, you do even get to that point where you don't have cravings for what you would call hyper palatable foods, like you don't want to eat an Oreo, because you are actually satisfied on that physiological level, which is not something that people are used to experiencing, whether it's in low carb or just in general. And people are always dieting. So you so even if a food is hyper palatable, we still our desire for it is still dependent on on that energy and on that energetic level. And to clarify, also talking about sugar. When we are talking about sugar, we're not talking about refined sugar in processed foods. We were talking about sugar as a whole, which would include sugar and processed foods. It also includes honey and sugar and fruits. And we are not saying that those things are all equal, but we're just saying that the sugar itself is not the issue. And again, we'll talk about why. We don't think white sugar is ideal. We also don't think it's the devil. But in a lot of the foods that it's in, there are actually a lot of things that are much worse than than the white sugar, or that are more of the problem. So the only the one other kind of counter argument or point that I saw being brought up a lot in the in the comments on the carnivore nd Paul saladinos YouTube videos, was this idea that, yeah, it's fine, or Yeah, it's fine to eat that honey once a year or twice a year, because that's the only time, like, that's the amount of time that we would have honey available ancestrally, and that, you know, if, if ancestral people were eating fruit, it was only during a couple months of the year, and it was this tiny, bitter fruit, so they were barely getting any sugar. And we've talked about this specifically for maybe on a decent portion of an episode, so I'll link to that. But the point being that a the whole idea that wild and ancient fruit is doesn't have a lot of sugar is actually not true. It's just a misunderstanding or, more or less over, yeah, misinformation. And so there's a really great article by Denise minger talking about that, so I'll definitely link to that. And the idea of it only being around for part of the year might be true depending on where people were living, but we would essentially argue that whether or not it was true doesn't make it ideal, and so just because they only had food available for part of the year doesn't mean they wouldn't have been much better off if they had it available year round. And we would also, and this is a much larger discussion, but. I would say that having year round healthy sugar sources available seems to be one of the major factors that drove an increase in complexity and intelligence in us as humans. Where basically, living in an environment where we did have those things year round was ideal, and since then, we've adapted to living in other environments. But it doesn't make those ideal. It just means that instead, they come at a cost and so that I'll just kind of leave it there. You can add something if you want. Well,

Mike 45:27
the thing that I think that's important to realize is people are getting results in the low carb community. People are getting results in the Keto community, people are getting results in the in the carnivore community. People are getting results in the fruitarian community. People are getting results in the vegan community, people are getting all over the place. The common thread between these communities is not that animal products and protein and fat are the issue, or that plant products or carbohydrates are the issue. The common thread is in most of these diets. I mean, what is it? The McDougal diet that gets a decent amount of results, is high starch diet that focuses specifically on, I don't want to butcher what his specific tenants are, but I'm pretty sure it's tubers and legumes and vegetables and things like that. And then in the the carnivore diet, you have a focus on animal products, specifically dairy and milk and and or dairy and meat and things like that, organ meats, eggs. And then paleo, or in low carb, you have leafy greens, specific vegetables, and all types of animal products. And then in paleo, it's all types of plant foods, fruits and things like that. And the avoidance, specifically of grains and fruitarian is obviously just straight fruit. And in all of these diets, the things that people are removing from these diets tend to be processed, industrialized foods, seed oils, refined grains and high grain intakes and things like that. A lot of them are focusing more on whole foods and what the paradigm that that we're at least, I'll speak for myself at this point, but I think you're on board that we're trying to present is that it's not a it's not a vilification of a single macronutrient or a single entire, specific groups of food. I mean, to some extent, there is issues with the specific groups of food, and there's a lot of nuances to all these things. It's kind of hard to just point to it being, oh, it's carbs. It's just carbs. That's what's causing all disease, things like that. Oh no, it's animal products. Oh no, it's that. I don't think it's specifically any of those things as a whole. I mean, I think what we're trying to get at here is it's fruit and specific vegetables and tubers and certain types of grains, like white rice, and then different animal proteins depending on tolerance and things like that. All those are not an issue. Those are those are not the issue foods. There's individual tolerance and things like that. A lot of the foods that are causing issues, and that's why you can see these differing results amongst the different dietary camps, for whatever it is, um, is the high amount of seed oils that we have that people are eating now. Boom, processed seed oils, vegetable oils, whatever it is, a high amount of refined grains and grain products in general, and just poor quality foods overall. I mean, you can go across cultures, across the world, eating vastly different diets and still maintaining health and different macronutrient ratios and things like that. And a lot of people in the ancestral community and whatnot have pointed some of this out. And you see it today, people able to thrive on different diets. I mean, you have people who are on carnivore or keto diets going over to having higher carb diets and still doing well. And then you have people who are previously vegan or fruitarian going over to these high fat diets for carnivore, keto and and doing fine and not getting obese and not getting heart disease and and whatever else. And there are issues that come with the individual diets. That's for sure, especially when you do extreme things like only eat fruit or only eat meat. There are going to be issues that come, come with those specific diets because of the how extreme they are, and some of the things that they they remove from the diet in and of themselves. But at the end of the day, the to start to villainize, oh, it's carbs that are causing disease, or, Oh, it's, it's all plant foods or things like that. I think that that's missing the mark, and there's a little more nuance. And I mean, that's what we're trying to get at here, um, and I think it's just important to point out that different diets have been working. And it's not only for just, oh, these types of people do well in vegan, and then these types of people do well in carnivore. You have vegans going to carnivore and doing okay, doing well, thriving, I mean, and it doesn't mean that, I don't think that carnivore is the direct answer, but I think it points to the Flex, to some extent, of what the range that we that the body can tolerate, and then now the point is, what's more ideal, and what are the contexts that are allowing the different diets to have their differing effects and things like that?

Jay Feldman 49:57
Yeah, yeah. I would clarify. That, at least from my view, it's it almost sounds like, and I don't think this is what you're saying, so that's why I want to clarify that it almost sounds like you're saying, as long as we're eating whole foods, it's fine, everything in moderation. Just, you know, just, just make sure you're not eating the processed industrial garbage that's out there. And of course, I don't think most of the processed industrial foods are a good idea. But there are definitely within the whole foods. We do not think that they're all created equal, either. And think that there are a lot of issues with with a lot of whole foods too, and with with certain types of plant foods, for sure, and with certain animal foods potentially as well. Yeah, yeah. And so it's I agree. I agree that vilifying carbs is definitely not the answer. But I don't think that it is not the answer just because it is the vilifying of a of what we call a nutrient. I just think it's not the answer, because when you look at it physiologically, it as a nutrient, plays a major role in in optimal health, and there's a huge cost not to not eating them.

Mike 51:03
Yeah, I don't want to. I'm not trying to make the argument, because I see a lot of people make, oh, just eat whole foods and you'll be fine. And I also don't think that that necessarily works for people either. That's why I point out that there are nuances to a lot of these things. And what really comes down to what, what the underlying thing, at the end of the day, is what makes physiologic sense, and that's what, that's what we're trying to get to. It's not about sticking to. My point is, it's not about sticking to carbs or animal products or whatever being the issue. It's sticking to what actually is the issue, being the issue, yeah? And I think that's pretty dogmatic, yeah. And I think it's and the thing is, a lot of people will say, Oh, the whole Well, vegetable oils aren't that bad. Did all this type of stuff, whatever it is, and it's like, no, there's a lot of research to show that it is. And it's not vilifying vegetable oils just because we have a vendetta on vegetable oil, or whatever it is, or on or on cruciferous vegetables or whatever it is. It's that when you look at the information on it, you have to break it down logically, and you come to a point you realize, you know what like, there's a lot of issues with the vegetable oils. They haven't really been consumed before. And when you put them in physiologically, there you get a lot of negative effects. And when you look at trends, you see a lot of negative so the overlying, the main point, is getting to what works physiologically, and not holding on to some sort of dogmatic idea, and gripping at, oh, it's carbs, oh it's oh it's animal products, oh it's whatever, whatever your or it's plant foods, whatever it is, because that's what each of these groups try to do. And they all find benefits to some extent, but they also have a lot of negatives, because it's, I think it's rooted more in just finding this one specific thing, choosing that as the enemy, and then just avoiding it like the plague. And instead of trying to look at nuances and trying to find specifically what actually works, and it's hard to root through a lot of that stuff, and it's easy to just find one thing and just call it that and game over.

Jay Feldman 52:55
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, makes a lot easier to simplify it all as and create a single villain. And yeah, it's, as you're saying, it's a more complex and nuanced picture. And there are definitely a lot of principles that are important to consider, when, when that when we are looking at that picture. And I would say also, we've talked a lot about vegetable oils and PUFA, and that is a big part of it. Other I mean, there are other things too, that we think are definitely not ideal, like seeds and nuts, which have a lot of PUFA, but also grains and legumes, a lot of raw vegetables. You mentioned the cruciferous vegetables. I mean, even talking about the benefits of fruit, there's also a lot of issues with with unripe fruit and poor quality fruit, which is a lot of the fruit that people are getting now anyway. So their fruit might not be all that great for you, depending on, depending on, uh, on the context, so which I think is a good transition. So in talking about somebody who is going from carnivore or raw primal, or any other, really, any other low carb or keto, to this more bioenergetic approach that that we see health through, there are a lot of things to consider. And we kind of talked about at least this part before, as far as the benefits to this, to making this transition. And we've talked about the importance hormonally, for thyroid hormones, reproductive hormones, for keeping our stress hormones down, which all of which affect virtually all of our symptoms. We've talked about the benefits in the context of autoimmune conditions, which is a pretty common issue, but also diabetes and insulin resistance, heart disease, cancer, really all any condition, and then also on the symptom level, making sure we're actually getting good sleep, not having muscle cramps, having energy to be active, having again, keeping the stress hormones low and the reproductive hormones High, which helps us maintain muscle mass and bone mass, having the energy to get through the day, not having brain fog. Another major one is skin, hair and nail health, which a lot of people see pretty big improvements on, both when addressing gut health, but also when bringing carbs back, because those are things that can deteriorate. Mental health is another. Is another huge one. Depression and anxiety and irritability are all really common when we have high stress hormones and we aren't fueling our brain properly and and we're running in this lower energy state. And that's one of, you know, a huge thing that we noticed for sure. So those are all things to kind of look for when making this transition. And I think that are these are all benefits that can be achieved, but there are also we want to make sure we're being careful, because there are certain things to watch out for when making this transition, it's really easy to make mistakes and the so let's just talk through a couple of those biggest mistakes. And as an overview, I would say, before even talking about the specifics, one of the most important things is to go slow and experiment carefully. So it's really easy to say, okay, carbs are great, and eat a ton of carbs, and any type of carbs. And I would say that's not a good idea, and it's probably going to lead you to...

Mike 55:58
Some type of gut issues, some type of bloating, waking very off. Yeah.

Jay Feldman 56:03
You might feel some benefits, but there's also going to definitely going to be some drawbacks. So going slow and experimenting carefully, I think, is pretty important, and will make so even if you make a mistake when you're doing that, it allows you to backtrack pretty easily. You can pretty easily determine what that mistake was due to, or at least more easily than when you make a bunch of changes at once. Yeah.

Mike 56:24
I'd say is, the thing is, you can try anything for a week, you know you're not going to gain 50 pounds in a week. So if you do something for a week and you're not feeling well, and there's other symptoms besides gaining 50 pounds, but a lot of people, when they add in carbs, they're worried about weight gain. And when you look at the physiology in regards to how fast you can actually put on fat tissue, I mean, you could put on water weight real fast. But as far as putting on fat tissue in one week, you're not going to get fat, right? So it's relatively it's actually, it's really an irrational fear to think, Oh, I'm going to try cars. We all going to get fat. You may get water weight. You may get some water weight, if it's not agreeing with you, whatever's going on, but you're not gonna get fat. You may have some other symptoms, depending on whatever you're doing, and it's important to do one thing at a time and to try that thing out, even if it's not for a full week, I would say try a week, but even as for a few days, just try it out, and just be aware of how you feel, not only right after you eat something, but down the line. So say, you eat, if you're eating some fruit, when it goes in, it's fine. If your small intestine is clear, you shouldn't have a problem. But if your colon has a dysbiosis, and then it hits the colonic environment, whatever fibers in there, if it has any type of fermentable sugar in it, then you start to get symptoms, but that won't manifest. They can manifest four hours later, when it hits the colon, or if it hits if there's different sections of the colon that have issues, say you have an overgrowth or an issue is specifically in the sigmoid section of your colon, 24 hours later, when you got to go to the bathroom, or 24 to 48 hours, whatever, however long your colonic trying transit time is you can get it, you can start to get it as symptoms then. So it's really important to take a few days and to see what's going on, because things might not hit you right away. And then the other thing to keep in mind is sometimes it may not be a dysbiosis. Sometimes there's an issue with the food, and you're you're interacting with the food, and you can get a symptom right away. As soon as it, soon as it it hits some people, they eat fruit, some fruits, and it bothers them. As soon as it hits their mouth, they get a itchy mouth. Or, I don't know what the specific the specific symptom is, but there's, there's different, weird reactions like that. So it's important to keep those things in mind, or becoming very mucusy, or something like that. I don't know. Do you want to mention specific foods that are good to try out. To start specifically for carbs, for carnivores, yeah.

Jay Feldman 58:44
So, yeah. So I would say, to kind of to sum it up, there are two things I would say that we want to consider the most when we're bringing carbs back in. And if we so, you So, if these things so the two things would be gut health, and that includes our ability to digest the food, and then also the what other things might be, digesting the food, some sort of pathogenic bacteria and things. The other side of it is the metabolism side. So our thyroid function, our reproductive function, how well we're able to convert that food to energy. And that can be dependent on gut health as well. But on the other side too, if you've been in a stress state for so long and your metabolism has been depressed for so long, it can take a little while before it catches back up and actually starts to use the food that you're taking in the fuel and convert it to energy, as opposed to storing it as fat. So those would be the two main components that I'd be considering when trying to add in something like carbohydrates. And seeing which ones are ideal is looking at it through those two lenses and some things to watch out for, symptom wise that you had mentioned if and these can so as far as the gut health side goes, if you're noticing any sort of digestive symptoms, GERD or indigestion or bloating or swelling. Time or holding a lot of water weight in your midsection, or major changes in your bowel movements. As far as consistency goes, whether it's a lot of constipation or loose stool on the other side, those are all important signal symptoms to keep an eye on. As far as whether you're digesting this food. Well, whether it's feeding gut bacteria, that kind of thing, and there are other symptoms as well, skin health and anxiety. I mean, are all things that are can be tied in with this brain fog, but so so those are kind of be things that might indicate more of a gut health issue or not digesting the food. Well, something in that realm. And on the other side, if you're noticing that you're not having too many symptoms, but you're gaining weight, and when you're eating more, and you've eaten a significant, significantly increase the amount that you're eating then that, and you're noticing that, you know, you're just putting on body fat from that, that can be a suggestion that your metabolism hasn't caught quite up yet. It's still depressed, and it can just take time to move it out of that space. So with those things in mind, yeah, there are certain foods that we would suggest probably trying first, as far as carbs go, that are safest, that are least likely to cause gut issues, and that are at least, least likely to cause metabolic issues. So the first ones that come to mind for me, one is honey, which, of course, Paul Saladino has been saying that's been the best one for him. He had tried some rice and, I think some fruit, but those can be harder to digest if you have gut issues, and those gut issues are also dependent on metabolism. If our metabolism is functioning well, then we can digest that food better, and we're less likely to have dysbiosis. But again, we've talked about that in the past, and I'll link to those things, but so honey can be probably one of the safest options after that, I would probably say good quality fruit juice is a good one to try and high quality fruits. And then I would say potatoes, sweet potatoes. And you know, all different forms of the potatoes and sweet potatoes. So a lot of times, the easier ones to digest are the smaller varieties of the potatoes, not the russets, but the like the new potatoes, the red or yellow ones, or purple potatoes, and then sweet potatoes. Same thing. Some of the you can you can do the regular sweet potatoes, or like the Japanese ones, or the white ones, the purple ones. There's all sorts of different types, but those would be kind of my first go tos. And then white rice can be okay as well for some people, but for the most part, sticking to more of those sugars are easier to digest, I would suggest starting with those sugars first, honey fruit juice and high quality fruits, as opposed and that can be frozen fruit as well, as opposed to starting with those starches. But the starches are still some people do better with the starches. So it's not quite that clear cut, but that would kind of be the general things I would look to as far as bringing in carbs, what do you think of that? Yeah.

Mike 1:02:43
I agree. I think that white potatoes and white rice are a lot easier to digest for most people than sweet potatoes, and I would put at least in my experience, because the sweet potatoes do have fermentable carbohydrates in there, whereas the white potatoes and white rice don't really have them, especially if they're not heated, and then recoil, which forms resistant starch. And then, as far as specific fruit juices, a lot of people will try out apple juice first, and I think that that's a bad idea, oh, yeah, because the apple juice hat is a high amount of fructose relative to glucose, and it also has a high amount of sorbitol in it, which is a sugar alcohol, and so that can actually cause bloating, gas and diarrhea, because we don't die, we don't digest all the fructose and sorbitol, and then it hits the it hits the colon, and it forms an osmotic laxative, and it causes a bacterial like explosion of fermentation. So I think that the best juices to start with, or the the best ones, in my experience, are a then they should be 100% juice concentrate or not. Not from concentrate is the best. But if you're gonna go with concentrate because it costs or whatever, I mean, it's not gonna kill you, it would be a good quality orange juice, which tends to be the cheapest and easiest to find..

Jay Feldman 1:03:57
Relative to other juices. Within orange juice, it'll be one of the more expensive orange juices, yeah.

Mike 1:04:02
But orange juice, as far as fruit juice goes, is one of the easiest and cheapest to find. Then the next one, it would be pineapple juice, that one actually digests easy for a lot of people. In my experience, another good one could be like a clear grape juice, usually the dark purple grape juice has actually like a pretty potent effect in my experience, whereas the white grape juice or the green grape juice, whichever one it is, those ones tend to tend to not be as potent and still give a pretty good effect. So those would be the first three that I would try. The reason I choose these because they have a one to one fructose to glucose ratio, and they don't have any fermentable carbohydrates in them, or sugar alcohols like pear juice or apple juice has the bad thing about most juices, though, is, since pear juice and apple juice is one of the most widely produced and cheapest, most quality juices, or I guess in this case, non quality juices are. Cut with those juices, and then you can get symptoms from those. And then additives to juices can also cause issues for people like citric acid or ascorbic acid or those. Some of the really bad ones have different preservatives, and those can irritate you as well. And just in my experience, having just like a quality pineapple orange juice won't give me symptoms, but if I try a crappy orange juice or a crappy pineapple juice with some additives, I can get stuffy nose and feel a little bit off with them. So it really is important. The quality of the food is really important. And as far as honey goes, some people really do tolerate it. I think the lighter varieties give people less symptoms than the super dark varieties. You know, everyone goes with the super dark ones because, oh, it's more plant compounds, more polyphenols, whatever, whatever, whatever. But at the end of the day, a lot of those compounds can be irritating to people, um..

Jay Feldman 1:05:53
And depending on the amount, they have a lot of benefits to them, especially as far as gut, as the gut is concerned. But, but, yeah,.

Mike 1:06:00
But they're really dark, yeah, the really dark ones tend to have really high amounts and the wire wildflower honeys are usually when are usually multiple different flowers that the bees pollinate and bring and create the honey from. And in that case, the the numerous types of pollens or plant compounds from the different and different flowers and things like that can be irritating to some people and things like that. So the clearer honeys tend to do pretty well. One of the best ones that that's my favorite, is a clover blossom honey, and that's a very light colored white honey, and it tastes pretty good overall.

Jay Feldman 1:06:35
Yeah. I mean, those are all really good points. As far as all of those things go, a couple things I would add, as far as juices and fruit goes organic is typically pretty important. There's some good resources there, but the pest is a lot of that's in terms of pesticides that people are concerned but beyond the pesticides, the ones that are organic are grown in typically much better conditions, and because of they can't use the pesticides. The soil quality is often different. They're higher nutrients. Typically they're higher in they're sweeter and they have higher amounts of sugar. Is one of those nutrients compared to a lot more of the acidic components, which can be problematic. So that's something to consider. And you had, again, kind of talking about potatoes and sweet potatoes. I've noticed some people who do better with sweet potatoes than regular and then vice versa. So again, your imitation is key there for all of these things. And we've we did actually an episode that was almost entirely talking about fruits, the different types, how to get the best quality, and what those differences are. So I will reference that. But I think overall, those are the main things that I would want to consider, at least in the beginning, when making this transition from any sort of low carb keto, but especially, especially carnivore and raw primal, towards the sort of approaches, is going slow and steady, starting with one thing at a time slowly. The first things I would kind of look to would be slowly increasing the carbs through these sources that we've talked about. Yep, I agree. All right, that's going to do it for today's episode. If you did enjoy it, please leave a review or a like or a comment, or if you're listening on iTunes, if you could leave a five star rating, I would really appreciate it. It really does a lot to help support the podcast. To check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where I'll be linking to any of the articles or studies or other podcast episodes that we had mentioned throughout today's episode. And if you are transitioning from the carnivore or primal type diets or any other sort of low carb diet, including keto, then I would definitely encourage you to head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll be walking you through some of the most important things to keep in mind and to consider when you are trying to optimize your metabolism and maximize your cellular energy. So I'll be talking through some of the most important things as far as nutrition are concerned, and then also as far as other lifestyle factors like stress and exercise are concerned. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman, wellness.com/energy, and I'll see you in the next episode.